


i'll be holding on to the memory of you [until there's nothing left]

by drowningeden



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Clark was always an asshole though, F/F, Lena deals with the death of her only friend, Lena is a bio-engineer at the DEO, Minor Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Pre-Relationship SuperCorp, Red Kryptonite Clark Kent, Superman vs Supergirl, may be a little sensitive so watch out i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:27:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23220199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drowningeden/pseuds/drowningeden
Summary: It didn’t matter if Lois Lane was the happiest woman on the planet with Clark by her side again because Lena, on the other hand, was the most miserable one. Kara was only trying to help – probably didn’t even want to fight him in the first place, Lena was sure of that –, and it was all Clarks fault anyway so why on Earth would he get a second chance if Kara didn’t?
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 13
Kudos: 100





	i'll be holding on to the memory of you [until there's nothing left]

When Kara died it was… devastating, to say the least. Losing a friend is never easy but losing the only friend you’ve ever had? That was too painful to handle, even for Lena.

She wasn’t working that night and Kara was busy with Supergirl’s usual patrols, so Lena spent her time with cheap wine and one her favorite books until exhaustion got the best of her. She woke up to several missed calls from one of the DEO’s private lines but, more surprisingly, no texts from Kara – the hero would always text her after hours on duty to let Lena know she was fine, it was their thing – so she knew something had happened.

Lena rushed to the DEO as she tried to contact Kara and repeatedly getting to voicemail which made her turn the radio on, not quite ready to be left alone with her thoughts – that’s when she found out. A hoarse voice rambled feverously about the previous night’s epic battle and meticulous description of what seemed to be the only digital evidence of it: a picture of Superman holding Supergirl’s _lifeless_ body.

She stopped the car in the middle of the empty road and turned the volume down, trying to assimilate the words she just heard but the man kept talking. “ _We still don’t know much about any of it_ ”, he said “ _like, what was Superman doing in NC in the first place? What could Supergirl have possibly done to trigger her cousin to that point? We’ve yet to know but one thing’s for sure: the Girl of Steel won’t be the one to tell us_ ”.

Lena didn’t expect Kara to be dead. There were many scenarios in her head, from a random emergency at the lab and Kara absently crushing another phone – it wouldn’t be the first time – to her being so badly hurt she spent the night passed out under yellow sunlight lamps; but the thing is, at the end of every one of them Kara was fine. She would get a new phone or recover far too quickly as only she could, but she wasn’t dead.

**––––––––––**

The moment she stepped into the DEO, Lena knew it was true. The air was heavy and everyone seemed uncharacteristically frantic, none of the usual quiet with their greatest guardian no longer around to look after the entire city. All screens and digital surfaces in the room played different points of view from the fight, from shaky recordings of a hidden camera in Kara’s suit to multiple tapes recorded on helicopters – Lena felt light-headed at the sight of her friend being hurt but she couldn’t take her eyes off of it.

When Lena finally looked away, she caught herself asking the same questions as the man in the radio and felt like a stranger to the situation; she was Kara’s best friend and yet she knew just as much about her death as the rest of the city and it was eating her alive, so she demanded answers.

**––––––––––**

Clark had been exposed to some kind of kryptonite which turned him into a bad version of himself, apparently – a field agent told her it was red and didn’t dampen his powers as the green one did. He flew all the way to National City looking for Kara and when he found her, things escalated quickly. The DEO instructed her to take the fight somewhere far from the city for damage control but that’s all they did, as no one could possibly interfere in a match between these two, too violent and too fast to keep up with. Kara tried to get him to talk but he didn’t seem to listen, screaming things like “impostor” and “false god” in-between punches as if they didn’t have the same blood running down their veins.

Kara held back, Lena could tell by the footage played over and over again on every monitor at the DEO. There was something about the way she hesitated just a little bit more after every harsh word Clark thrown at her. Something about the way Kara never looked him in the eye when he talked, like maybe she felt… guilty. Like for some reason she agreed with him that yes, she was an impostor and that was his planet and his people and she _did_ ruin everything by being there.

It all made Lena furious because none of it was true and although everyone at the DEO argued that wasn’t really Clark, she hated him for making Kara feel as though as she didn’t belong there. Lena knew he’d always been jealous of the world’s sacred devotion to Supergirl and her unmatched power he could only dream of having – it could’ve been _him_ , just as well. To think that Kara still cared for him despite the disturbing truth that Clark only saw her as a competitor to be beaten, it was… sickening.

So, when Lena found out that Clark had actually survived the whole fight and some DEO special team flew from Metropolis to contain his evil self right _after_ Kara died, she was pissed. He had been exposed to controlled doses of green kryptonite until their lab could reverse the red one then prayed for it to wear off and, god, it made her hands shake with rage just thinking about it.

With Superman now recovered, the DEO made a choice not to tell the whole truth about the fight – meaning, _director Lucy Lane decided to cover that her sister’s husband killed Supergirl_ – because “people just lost Supergirl, we can’t have them hating on Superman right now!”. Then, easy as that, every magazine and news channel on the planet told the story of the mighty Man of Steel, who sacrificed his own family for the sake of the Earth after Supergirl lost her mind.

They painted Kara as the ruthless, irresponsible hero for directly exposing herself to an unknown kind of kryptonite – which Clark did –, talked as she’d crossed the line from a powerful hero to a dangerous villain – which Clark did – and demonized her in every way they could think of to clean Superman’s image, even if they had to bury hers for that. The very thought of that sick made-up story was enough to make Lena shiver with rage; Kara gave her life to protecting that city and hatred was her reward.

**––––––––––**

It didn’t matter if Lois Lane was the happiest woman on the planet with Clark by her side again because Lena, on the other hand, was the most miserable one. Kara was only trying to help – probably didn’t even want to fight him in the first place, Lena was sure of that –, and it was all Clark’s fault anyway so why on Earth would he get a second chance if Kara didn’t?

Everything was just too much. Not having Kara around like after every other fight as Supergirl or getting a text with definitely too many emojis saying _“hey, I’m alright!”_ made Lena want to crawl into her bed and never get up because the world is too much of a scary place and she’s not sure she can face it by herself again. She’s not sure she wants to, not without Kara.

**––––––––––**

She does it anyway – gets out of bed the next day, goes to work and acts like everything is fine. It doesn’t matter if she cries herself to sleep at night or catches herself looking at the DEO’s balcony Kara used to land in, as if waiting for a flash of red and blue to come from the sky. It doesn’t matter that she’s afraid she’ll forget the sweetness of Kara’s voice or what her laugh sounded like, ignoring every recording and interview on the internet because it was different when Kara talked _to her_ , laughed _because of her_.

But maybe it does matter, for when director Lane comes up with some sort of wicked funeral so National City could move on, Lena falls apart. Although she’s sure some people genuinely liked Supergirl, most of them were just afraid of what she supposedly became at that point, relieved even that Superman did what he did. It made Lena sick as she wasn’t mourning the downfall of a hero like everyone else, but the death of a friend. 

[Kara was maybe more than a friend but Lena never allowed herself to go as far as acknowledging that. She sure as hell wouldn’t do it now, for it would also mean accepting the woman she was desperately in love with was really gone.]

**–––––––––––––––**

Despite the anger that spread through her at the thought of the funeral, Lena watched it. Didn’t even consider going there herself, no – she would feel like an impostor, praying to a god she doesn’t believe in to _please give her friend back_ while everyone else just wished for another beacon of hope. So, yes, Lena was fine with watching it away from the people who were probably glad she was killed – even if they were just manipulated by the circumstances, unaware of the invisible strings being pulled by an organization they don’t even know exists.

She’d managed to see whole fifteen minutes of speeches about “what a martyr Supergirl would be despite being responsible for her own decay” until he came on the stage. Clark had his Superman suit on, not a single scratch or reminder of the fight in which he… did that to Kara. He spoke calmly as if he wasn’t the one to break every bone in her body, talked as if he didn’t wash her blood away from his hands just seven days ago. Clark lied about admiring her, gave a half-hearted apology for killing off their guardian before saying _it was the right thing to do_ , then promised to protect National City as Supergirl once did. The crowd exploded in thunderous applause as Lena turned off the TV.

She quit that day.

**Author's Note:**

> that was my first shot at writing so let me know if you liked it! any thoughts on how it could be better are welcome, too


End file.
